utah-hb-353 posts

You may remember us mentioning that the recent veto of Utah's recently proposed video/PC game bill by the state's governor Jon Huntsman Jr. may not be the end of the matter. The state's legislature could overturn that veto if they got a two-thirds majority to vote in favor of it. Now it's looking less likely that will happen, although it's not because the supporters of the bill can't find the votes.

According to the Deseret News, the reason may be money. As with everyone else, Utah's state government is dealing with budget issues and creating a special legislative session to overturn Governor Huntsman's veto could cost the state $25,000. The article indicates a reluctance to do so in order to save money. The deadline to call such a special session is May 11.

[Via Game Politics]

Most of the PC and video game sales laws that have attempted to be passed by local and state governments have concentrated on the games themselves. These laws tried to make sales of games with violent and/or sexual content illegal to minors. All of those laws have been shot down in the court system so far under First Amendment free speech

Now a new bill in the Utah State Legislature is taking a different approach, The bill, HB 353, is targeted at retailers who have enforcement policies on the sales of games. The bill will allow people to file a lawsuit against retailers who pledge not to sell certain rated games to minors but then are discovered to have done so anyway.

The Salt Lake Tribune web site reports that there are a number of exceptions for retailers in the final bill, such as exempting stores from being sued that have employee-training programs. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Michael Morley, was originally written with assistance by none other than game industry critic and disbarred attorney Jack Thompson, according to Game Politics. The bill passed the Utah House Tuesday with a vote of 70-2. It now goes to the Utah Senate for their vote and if passed will finally go to Utah's governor for the final signing into law. It's unclear if the game industry will attempt to fight the bill in court if it does become law.